> When you say "allow", what do you mean exactly? I'm not sure why a legitimate media outlet would give air time to the idea of the earth being flat, for example. No one has to allow or disallow this, other than those working for the news outlet and deciding what they want to present.

I'm German. We have quite the extensive list of stuff that's banned from public discourse - it's mostly "old Nazi stuff" related obviously like Holocaust denial, but in recent years there have been quite the few additions, especially around conspiracy myths relating to antisemitism [1], war crime denial/downplayment [2] or "from the river to the sea" when it's related to Hamas [3].

Personally, I support this - it makes it clear for everyone what is and what is not considered acceptable part of democratic discourse.

> Corona viruses mutate frequently, this was known well before Covid but the lie was repeated to explain why vaccines would work.

Vaccines did and do work. Yes, people still died of Covid even with vaccinations or vaccinations against different strains, but at significantly lower rates than without the vaccines. It's been quite the time since the last reports of hospitals having to resort to use fridge trucks as makeshift morgues [4].

> Two weeks was never going to stop the spread, another lie that would have been clear to anyone with a basic knowledge of novel pathogenic spread.

Two weeks was indeed short, but four weeks was enough to crush at least the first wave of COVID in Germany [9]. I'm reasonably certain that, had we kept up the response intensity and agility at that level and coordinated it internationally, the following waves would have been much, much less severe.

> Herd immunity was not a realistic goal, Fauci admitted later that his targets for vaccine uptake were kept lower than realistic because he didn't think people would find the real numbers feasible.

Yeah, thank COVID deniers and antivaxxers for that one - there are quite the few countries who managed to get nearly everyone vaccinated [5]. When the President shills horse dewormer or shining UV lights into one's arse [6], that sets an example for the general population - and not a very good one. Of course, the ideal vaccination target would be close to 100%, but even lower targets massively help at stopping the spread.

> Ivermectin is not just a horse dewormer, though reasonable to think it wouldn't help with Covid it has human uses and saves countless people from river blindness.

Trump and large parts of the political (far) right shilled ivermectin explicitly against covid despite there being no evidence that it would actually help against covid. I can't find it any more because Google has gone down the drain, but IIRC the positive correlation of ivermectin with Covid was in populations that suffered from worms, so the patients got better as their body didn't have to fight covid and parasites at the same time.

> The lab leak hypothesis is, and was, a real possibility despite the campaign to brand it as dangerous and xenophobic.

People didn't just see it as a possibility. The President actually called COVID "kung flu" as a result of the theory cropping up, and his followers didn't waste time in (pun intended) trumping up [7]. I distinctly remember people even calling for war or other retaliatory action against China - it was more than justified IMHO to push back hard on all of that, if only to prevent a repeat of the shameful events during WW2 [8].

[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/bhakdi-antisemitismus...

[2] https://www.lto.de/recht/hintergruende/h/volksverhetzung-voe...

[3] https://www.lto.de/recht/hintergruende/h/hamas-parole-river-...

[4] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/07/us/new-york-coronavirus-v...

[5] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1203308/umfra...

[6] https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-wants-bring-light-insi...

[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/technology/how-anti-asian...

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

[9] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19-Pandemie_in_Deutschla...